Here comes that anti-gay marriage bill

“Texas is pioneering a legislative effort to subvert a potential Supreme Court ruling on marriage and lock in discrimination against gay and transgender people and their families,” Kathy Miller, president of the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network, told reporters in a conference call Monday morning.

“If successful, the strategy could spread to other states, especially in the South,” she said. “But it definitely risks a major backlash from the business community and from Texas voters … that would damage the brand of Texas for a long time to come.”

Miller was alluding to controversies that flared in Indiana and Arkansas a couple of months ago after lawmakers in both states passed religious-refusal bills inspired by a spate of federal court victories by gays and lesbians seeking to overturn state bans of same-sex marriage.

The Texas bills are drawing national attention. Several reporters from national news media organizations participated in Monday’s press call.

Organizers hope to generate a groundswell of protests by Texans, especially to center-right members of the Texas House’s GOP leadership. Miller said bill opponents are less optimistic about their chances of stopping the bills in the Texas Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has shown his eagerness to pass similar legislation by successfully persuading senators to suspend Senate rules recently to allow late filing of one such bill, she said.

[…]

Chuck Smith, executive director of the gay rights group Equality Texas, called it “a mean spirited piece of legislation.”

Smith said it would ignore Texans’ growing acceptance of gay marriage and inflict unnecessary pain.

“It will be yet another state-sanctioned slap in the face to lesbian and gay couples who simply want to make a lifetime commitment to the person that they love,” he said.

The bill could generate costly lawsuits if the Supreme Court strikes down Texas’ 2005 gay marriage ban, said Smith and Rebecca Robertson, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas’ legal and policy director.

Robertson said county clerks would be caught between conflicting orders from judges, much like their counterparts in Alabama. In Alabama, a federal district court judge struck down that state’s same-sex marriage ban, but the state’s highest-ranking judge ordered officials not to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

“We’d absolutely be on the course that Alabama is on, where you just have chaos for the time being, until it’s sorted out,” she said.

See here for the background. There’s no chance of voting this bill down, so delays and the rulebook are the Democrats’ best friends. I hope someone has a point of order or three in his or her back pocket to try to send this mess back to committee.

Like I said, the Republicans are seriously out of touch with the general public on this. I’d be willing to bet that even a sample of Republican primary voters would be more than ten percent favorable to same sex marriage. But as always, until someone loses an election over it, nothing will change. As for the Dems, support of same sex marriage in our world is pretty high, but it’s not unanimous. Not having a single Democratic coauthor on this bill is therefore a nice accomplishment. I hope that translates to no votes in favor of it as well, but we’ll see. There are still a couple of potential holdouts to be reckoned with.

The Senate on Monday tentatively approved a bill saying that clergy, churches, religious organizations and their employees don’t have to be involved in gay weddings if they don’t want to be.

The bill advanced by a vote of 21-10, despite warnings from some Democrats that it’s vague and inadvertently might provide legal cover for biased actions by religious health-care institutions or clergy who hold elective offices such as justice of the peace.

“As far as I’m concerned, this bill does not deal with the secular in any form,” said Estes, R-Wichita Falls.

“It is not my intention to discriminate against anyone with this bill,” he said. “My intention is to protect pastors’, ministers’ and clergy’s First Amendment rights.”

See here and here for the background. You know how I feel about this, so let me quote Sen. Rodney Ellis’ statement on SB2065, since he pretty much nails it:

“This bill is a solution in search of a problem,” said Senator Ellis. “In the more than 30 states where same-sex couples can legally marry, no clergy or house of worship has ever been compelled to perform a same-sex wedding. The fact is that there are many faith traditions that embrace gay and lesbian couples and joyfully celebrate these marriages. Nobody is reliant on forcing a reluctant pastor in order to get married.”

That has always been true in any context, and it will continue to be true for as long as we have the Constitution. The Trib has more.